Tag Archives: aquarium ornament

Breeding fish in a home aquarium

The usual fish tank aquarium is set up for the enjoyment of the observer.  An aquarist will often buy a pair of fish, a male and a female. As with other creatures when a male and a female get together the natural impulse is to breed.  A natural question might be, ”Why doesn’t the aquarium soon over flow with fish?”  One of the answers to such a question is related to the breeding needs of tropical fish.

In some cases, fishes in captivity do not acclimate to aquarium conditions.  Even though they may be kept alive and in good health there is “something” missing.  The missing element could be one thing or a combination of things.  It might be that the water pressure is not right for that breed of fish to spawn.  For some fish there is a need for a lot of surface water and even a large fish tank cannot provide enough surface water. Some fish are rendered sterile under normal shipping conditions. Not all the reasons are known and most are speculation.

For the fish that do breed in a fish tank aquarium, the usual community tank does not give enough protection for many of the fry to survive.  This is especially true for the egg scatterers.

Egg scatterers comprise a large portion of the commonly used tropical fish population.  Included in this group are the Tetras, Pencilfish, most of the Barbs, some of the Minnows, Hatchet, and Catfish as well as many others.  The process is just as the name implies.  The female swims and scatters her eggs; the male follows behind her and fertilizes them. An observer sees this behavior as a chase.  Other fish in the tank see this as a feeding.  Even the parent fish will enjoy the roe once the spawning is completed.

A few of the fertilized eggs may make it to the bottom of the tank and find shelter in the aquarium gravel.  The eggs differ in degrees of stickiness to none at all.  The sticky eggs may adhere to an aquarium ornament or plant; some of the eggs may float.  All of the eggs in this group are abandoned by the parent fish making them susceptible to scavengers.  Even the eggs that make it to the safety of aquarium sand or gravel have only a slight chance of maturing into fry. Bottom feeders and scavenger fish will eat most of them.  If an egg should be able to hatch their chances of survival are next to nothing.  The fry are non-swimmers until the yolk sac is absorbed and a lack of an appropriate food source will also inhibit the small fish’s chances of survival.

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Aquarium gravel and water

It wasn’t too many years ago that the home aquarist paid very little attention to the water in an aquarium. Perhaps some of that was due to the fact that most of the water used was collected from ponds or rainwater catch. Now most of us get our water from our water taps. The water has been processed to insure that it is safe for us to drink. Our safe drinking water is not necessarily the best water for fish. Chlorination is usually part of the water cleaning process. That and other chemicals added to our tap water can be stressful and even fatal to some fish.

Fish cannot survive in waters that are too acid or too alkaline. The acidity is measured on a scale that is known as the pH scale, shorthand for potentiometric hydrogen ion concentration. A pH scale starts with the strongest acids measuring pH 1, and ending with the strongest alkali as low as pH 14. In the wild, waters that harbor fish can a range from an acidic pH of 4 to a basic pH of 9. Most home aquaria should be kept near a neutral pH of 7 unless the specific species you have require something else.

There are ways to measure the pH of the water in an aquarium. The easiest is probably the litmus paper strip. To obtain a reading, dip the paper strip into the water and compare the color of the paper with a chart. This is a fast and easy method but can be inaccurate. The chemically treated paper can be affected by age and storage conditions.

A better and more accurate way to test the water is to obtain a kit that provides a vial and indicator chemicals. Water is collected in the vial and then the chemicals are added. The water changes color to indicate the pH.

Besides the source of the water there are other factors that can affect the pH and the degree of hardness of the water (DH). The aquarium ornaments we add to our tanks can slowly leach out calcium and magnesium salts. The ornaments include aquarium gravel, stones, or metals that are place in the water.

Prevention and cure of a pH or DH problem starts with using only aged water. That is water that has been collected and allowed to sit in a loosely covered pail for a day or two before adding it to the aquarium. Another preventative step is to buy aquarium gravel approved for aquarium use by being pH and DH tested. Rocks and stones should be of a non-metallic nature and free of limestone.

Before placing anything in an aquarium it should be washed and allowed to soak in clear water for a few days. The water should be tested before and after the soaking. If the pH or DH changes discard the object or try treating it with a mild solution of Hydrochloric acid then rinse thoroughly. Try the soaking and testing again. Your fish will thank you.

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Experiences in setting up a home aquarium

My aquarium experiences started off as something of an accident. My partner and I were given a 5-gallon fish tank with a simple over the side fiberglass filter. The tank also included a few guppies and mollies.

We set up the tank on a small aquarium stand near our eating area. It turned out that the tank became our mealtime TV. We could watch the fish swim and eat while we ate our evening meal. The slow movement through the water was accented by the mating chase and the territorial disputes. It was exciting the first time we saw a baby fish being born. It was just as moving to see that same baby fish become fish food.

Knowing very little about having an aquarium we also knew very little about how to best keep our newborn fish alive. One store suggested we use a breeding cage. The idea of the breeding cage is to place the mother inside a mesh cage or trap that would permit her to give birth. The babies would fall through the cage openings and the mother would not consume them. As you can easily imagine, this only protected the fry from the birthing mother and not from the other fish. In order for that method to be effective it would require that each mother have a tank of her own until she was finished giving birth. That did not sound like a workable idea for us.

Similar to the cage is a breeding plate. This is a mesh plate that is inserted into a tank slightly above the aquarium gravel. The idea is that the fry can fall below the plate and have a protected area to start their life. We did not like the appearance of the plate and it made cleaning the gravel impossible. For a breeder who wanted to collect young fish and didn’t care how the tank looked this might be a good method of separating newborns from adults.

Another suggestion was to have lots of plants for the fry to be dropped in or near. They could then hide and avoid being eaten by all the bigger fish. This idea at least was workable. In our ignorance we planted the whole bottom of the aquarium in plants. The plants were not properly anchored down and soon we had one of the biggest floating gardens I have ever seen. All we could see was the floating garden, no fish. With a little practice, observation and a bit of advice from knowledgeable shop owners we learned the proper balance of plants to fish and other aquarium ornaments.

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